Official Global Top Sellers of 2004 – with Sales
#6 Robbie Williams – Greatest Hits – 5,600,000
From positions #14 to #50 the annual list is full of albums with no global appeal, and popular only in one main region, North America, Asia or Europe. From the #13 spot though, all albums we have met have a widespread appeal which sounds logical as to be among the very best sellers you need to cross over all regions.
Robbie Williams was so insanely popular in Europe and Australia that he had the highest selling compilation of the year with virtually no sales in the US and in Japan. His Greatest Hits went to #1 all over Europe with gigantic weekly sales, including a stunning 320,000 units sold in its first week in the UK alone.
Just like every other big Christmas release, a number of those 5,6 million units were sold to consumers in later months, although not as many as the previous albums since the October release gave retailers a chance to better adjust their orders before the holiday rush. In any case it was easily the highest selling album of the year in the old continent.
I hope you will continue an analysis in this way ( year by year ) . Thank You !
Please do Anastacia’s article!
Hi MJD I’ve been fascinated by all the work you’ve done with Popularity/Chart analyses, especially this one, I just have a few Questions, I am very interested in the number #17 album by Ashlee Simpson and was pretty shocked to read she didn’t break into the European market and I’ve always wondered why, if she did so great in America why not there as well? Also will you be doing a Popularity analysis on her and maybe Jessica in the future if possible (Hilary duff is also an interesting case considering her sales almost mirror Miley’s and Justin Bieber’s except… Read more »
Too quiet in here. Let’s start the bets for AC/DC. 185m from me.
Hi Dan!
Don’t worry, it won’t be too quiet for too long! AC/DC’s figures for albums and single sales are complete! Only a few edits and a few word typing from the team and it’ll be for all of your viewing pleasure in a matter of a few days!
We also have a new addition to the data collector Anthony’s doing that might interest some of you!
Hey Raffi, thanks for the update. (im)Patiently waiting 🙂
Im loving this. I hope you can publish yearly album sales rankings. Tq.
Hi MJD! Nice work on this article. I just have one question regarding the top seller of the year, Usher’s Confessions. You said that the album wasn’t heavily fueled by Xmas shipments, and that it shipped 8m in the US and 4m abroad. However, the album was reissued in late 04 and the single with Alicia Keys, My Boo was a big hit in late 04/early 05. The reissue helped Confessions jump from the bottom Top 20 to #2 in the US and was Top 10 for most of Nov/Dec 04, so I was wondering perhaps there would be additional… Read more »
Hi Raffi! Clearly, Confessions had copies remaining on shelves by the end of 2004. It is all about proportions. First, it sold monster amounts all over the year, since even, say, one million extra copies, fuel it by less than 10%, while Christmas cash-ins may have from 15% to 25% of their shipments unsold by the end of the year. Second, while we got used to be reissues, back in 2004 this wasn’t a popular trend. The album had sold insane numbers already so retailers haven’t gone wild about that reissue, even if it ended up selling very well. Third,… Read more »
Thank you for posting, MJD! This was a very interesting read. I’m quite shocked Utada’s “Single Collection” sold that much. According to Oricon, it sold 2,586,347 physical copies in 2004. Was she really that global?
Hi Stephen!
Well not “global” but at least in various Asian markets she sold quite well. We tend to believe she was a Japanese seller only because she failed to break South Korea for which we know some data, but First Love for example sold half a million units in Taiwan and half a million more elsewhere in Asia!
I am surprised to see that Beyoncé’s Dangerously In Love did not make the list given that it still carried success into 2004.
Dangerously in Love by 2004 was already doing poorly on the charts all over the world. I wasn’t surprised in didn’t make it inside the top 50.
On the contrary, if the IFPI recorded sales sold to consumers rather than shipments during the year, DIL would be comfortably in the Top 50, as the album sold 1,4m in the US (based on Soundscan) and had a decent chart run in both the UK and Australia to allow it to reach 2m copies sold to consumers for the year. After all, singles Naughty Girl and Me, Myself and I were Top 5 smashes in the States and did decently abroad. However, as MJD pointed out, this list is based on the IFPI’s ranking, which counts shipments (copies sold… Read more »
What about In The Zone? Her worldwide smash Toxic would have continued to fuel heavy sales, in addition to her Onyx Hotel Tour promoting the album. Follow-up single Everytime would perform well enough and while her eventual GHits album did make this list, I just don’t see why ITZ wouldn’t have made it. Didn’t it have stronger sales than DiL?
And about Beyoncé’s Dangerously In Love? I expected it appears in 2004’s YTD due the release in the mid of 2003. How much it scan in these two calendar years?